Also in Ohio

AP reports, "Ohio court reprimands judge in death penalty case," via Google News.

The Ohio Supreme Court has reprimanded a judge and a prosecutor for teaming up to write a death penalty sentencing order.

The discovery of the prosecutor's involvement in writing the order led the court to overturn the sentence of the first woman condemned under Ohio's new death penalty law. Donna Roberts, convicted of murdering her ex-husband, has since been resentenced to death.

The court issued public reprimands Thursday to Judge John Stuard of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court and Chris Becker, an assistant county prosecutor.

The court noted Stuard had a practice of enlisting the county prosecutor's office in drafting sentencing opinions.

"High court reprimands judge, prosecutor," is the report in the Youngstown Vindicator.

The Ohio Supreme Court has given public reprimands to Judge John M. Stuard of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court and Chris Becker, an assistant county prosecutor, for what Judge Stuard said was a common practice in his courtroom.

The high court gave no other sanctions for the misconduct.

The court, in its decision, said Judge Stuard had a practice of enlisting help from the county prosecutor’s office in drafting journal entries in criminal cases.

Specifically, Judge Stuard employed the practice for the sentencing of Donna Roberts of Howland in 2003, when Judge Stuard sentenced her to death for her role in the murder of her ex-husband, Robert Fingerhut, in 2001.

Becker and the judge have said Becker prepared the 17-page sentencing entry, at Judge Stuard’s request.

The entry stated the sentence Roberts would get, some explanation of why and gave some history of the case.

And:

John Coughlan, disciplinary counsel for the Ohio Supreme Court, said the problem with the practice of having the prosecutor prepare the entry was that it constituted ex-parte (meaning one-sided) communications because it excluded defense counsel from being involved.

In this case, the defense team of John B. Juhasz and J. Gerald Ingram were not allowed to participate in the preparation of the sentencing entry because they had not seen it before it was read in court or been told the prosecution was preparing it, Coughlan said.

When Juhasz and Ingram noticed that Ken Bailey, an assistant county prosecutor also involved in the Roberts’ case, had a copy of the sentencing entry while Judge Stuard was reading his ruling during Roberts’ sentencing hearing, the defense lawyers raised an objection, which led to a complaint being filed by the Ohio Supreme Court’s Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline against Judge Stuard, Becker and Bailey.

The Supreme Court dismissed the complaint against Bailey, saying he had not done anything improper.

Stuard, Becker and Bailey testified during a hearing in March before the Board of Commissioners on Grievances Discipline.

I'm informed by a reader in Ohio that:

"Ohio law requires that after a jury returns a death verdict, the trial judge conduct an independent review to determine whether aggravation outweighs mitigation and then impose sentence accordingly.  The judge is required, also, to write an opinion explaining why aggravation does or does not outweigh mitigation."